CALGARY - Alberta has the highest vacancy rate of unfilled jobs in the country, according to a survey released Monday by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The organization said there were 63,300 unfilled jobs in the province in the first quarter of this year with a vacancy rate of 3.8 per cent.

In its last survey, for the fourth quarter of 2013, the CFIB said Alberta led the nation with a 3.7 per cent vacancy rate and 59,000 unfilled jobs.

The quarterly report is based on surveys of CFIB members on economic and business conditions, including labour shortages. Job vacancies in the report are defined as openings that remain unfilled for at least four months because business owners have been unable to find suitable employees.

At the national level, the job vacancy rate in the first quarter was 2.6 per cent with 312,200 unfilled jobs. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the vacancy rate was 2.5 per cent with 296,000 unfilled jobs.

“A high private sector job vacancy rate in Alberta is a function of our hot provincial economy and significant growth in the number of new job opportunities being created,” said Richard Truscott, the CFIB’s Alberta director. “Unfortunately, there simply aren’t enough qualified people at all skill levels to fill all the demand, especially from the smallest businesses. This issue is definitely hamstringing our economic potential.

“But as the report shows, rising wages alone will not resolve our predicament. Better alignment between the jobs and people in the labour market is a key ongoing challenge for our province.”

The CFIB said its latest Help Wanted report also clearly shows that when employers have open jobs, they try to attract talent by raising wages, yet severe labour shortages persist. This disproves a common belief that businesses with labour shortages simply need to pay higher wages to attract staff, it said.

“Employers with at least one long-term job vacancy expect to increase wages by significantly more than do employers without vacancies,” said Ted Mallett, CFIB’s chief economist and vice-president, in a news release. “This differential exists across all provinces and industries, and interestingly, is most pronounced in the hospitality sector.”

The CFIB said most businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors were recently excluded from using the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to address severe labour shortages and there have been suggestions that employers simply need to raise wages to attract Canadians to these unfilled jobs.

But CFIB said its data from 2009 to 2014 suggests this is already taking place.

“This is remarkable labour market data that no one, not even the government has gathered,” said CFIB president Dan Kelly. “We think this merits the government taking a fresh look at the TFWP and other options like using the permanent immigration system to help employers that are desperate for workers, and just can’t attract the staff they need locally.”

Nationally, vacancies were steady in most sectors in the first quarter, with retail, hospitality, manufacturing and construction continuing to have the most potential job openings with more than 35,000 each, said the CFIB.

The smallest businesses (between one and 19 employees) had a vacancy rate of 4.1 per cent.

Recently, Statistics Canada reported that Alberta had the highest job vacancy rate in the country at 2.4 per cent with 48,600 job vacancies in the province in April.

The job vacancy rate is the number of vacant positions divided by total labour demand which is made up of occupied positions plus vacant positions.

Todd Hirsch, chief economist with ATB Financial, in a recent commentary, said job vacancy rates vary significantly across sectors in Alberta. Businesses in the accommodation and food industries are facing a vacancy rate of 7.7 per cent — up from 5.7 per cent a year ago.

“Employers in this sector depend heavily on foreign temporary workers. Recent changes to the program may cause the vacancy rate to rise even higher,” said Hirsch.

“A high job vacancy rate is good news and bad news. The good news is it signals a healthy job market and an abundance of employment positions. This is the reason thousands of people have moved to Alberta. The bad news is employers may find it difficult to find qualified applicants to fill vacant jobs which may limit their ability to operate profitably.”

mtoneguzzi@calgaryherald.com

Twitter.com/MTone123

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